Because She Loves Me (9 page)

The second email was from Karen.

Hi Andrew,

How are you? It’s been quite a while. Hope you’re well.

Victor told me you might be able to work on a website design for me. It’s nothing special – I need a site to show potential clients, with a bio, a few articles, some testimonials, etc. Can you tell me how much you would charge and then maybe we could meet to discuss?

Thanks,

Karen

She was an HR consultant, a person who went into businesses and told them how to manage their staff more effectively. That’s what she’d been doing when I met her at Victor’s office, though it turned out that she and Victor were old friends. I was glad the email was so businesslike and impersonal. I fired back a quick response, telling her my day rate and that I would guess such a job would take two or three days (really, it depended how fussy she was). Then I spent a couple of hours pulling together some preliminary ideas for the Wowcom job.

Before I finished for the day, Karen replied to my email saying my day rate sounded fine and suggesting a couple of times for us to meet, both of which were later in the week. We agreed on Friday afternoon, so I could see her before going on to see Sasha.

Waiting for Charlie to turn up, I opened a bottle of wine and had a sort through some of my photography books. The email
conversation
with Karen had reminded me of an exhibition she’d taken me to see on one of the rare occasions we’d been out together.

She’d taken me to see some work by the photographer Rankin, who specialised in portraits of the rich and famous, along with more explicit pictures including nude shots of his model wife. Karen had bought me a Rankin book as a present and I wanted to look at it now – not to ogle the nudes but because there were some photos taken on beaches that I thought might provide useful inspiration for the Wowcom project.

I couldn’t find the book. I searched the bookcase but it wasn’t there. It was a large hardback and it couldn’t have slipped behind the other books, and I was certain I hadn’t lent it to anyone or taken it anywhere.

But before I could think about it any more, the doorbell rang, then rang again and kept on ringing, urgent, insistent. I went out into the stairwell and ran down the stairs as quickly as I could. Someone – Charlie, I assumed – was banging on the front door like she was desperate to get in.

I heaved the door open and she tumbled inside, panting.

She grabbed hold of me. She was cold but sweaty.

‘Someone’s following me,’ she said.

Ten

I peered out of the door at the lamplit street, my heart beating fast. I couldn’t see anyone.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

She nodded mutely. She looked terrified.

I stepped out onto the street, Charlie imploring me to be careful, and looked up and down the road. Apart from an elderly lady walking her dog, there was no one around. I went back inside and shut the door.

‘Come on, let’s get you upstairs,’ I said. ‘You’re shaking.’

The first thing she said when we got into my flat was, ‘I need a drink.’

She took a thirsty gulp of the wine I handed her and I steered her over to the sofa, sitting beside her, rubbing her cold arm.

‘What happened?’

She hugged herself. Her face was very pale. ‘I took a shortcut through the park again. I know, I know – it’s a stupid thing to do. But I thought it would be fine.’

I waited for her to continue.

‘I got about halfway through, just past the big house in the middle, and then realised there was someone behind me on the path. It was like they were hiding by the house and came out when they saw me. It was so dark I couldn’t see him properly.’

I squeezed her hand.

‘He followed me down the path.’ The words gushed out. ‘I didn’t really want to look back but it was like he was gaining on me, going really fast, and all I could think of was that he was a rapist so I started running and he started running too and I just made it to the gap in the railings before him and I got through and he came through too and followed me down the street until I rang your doorbell . . .’

‘Charlie, sweetheart.’

She was almost hyperventilating, and she clung to me on the sofa, shivering and crying silently. I held her like that until she calmed down, kissed the tear trails on her cheeks.

‘We should call the police.’

‘They’ll just say I shouldn’t walk through the park at night.’

‘Maybe, but it’s still worth it. What if he attacks someone else?’

I walked across the room to get my phone.

‘Please, Andrew. I really don’t want to call them. They’ll tell me off for going into the park after dark.’

I weighed the phone in my hand. She was right: it was clearly signposted that you shouldn’t enter the park at night. But I still thought it was worthwhile in case this man attacked someone else.

‘Plus he didn’t actually do anything, did he?’ she said.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’m going to phone them, say I saw someone go into the park, acting suspiciously. OK?’

She nodded.

While I waited for the police to answer I said, ‘I bet it was the same guy who I thought was watching us last night.’

Charlie hugged her knees to her chest. ‘Don’t say that. I don’t like the thought . . . that someone saw us having sex.’

I got through to the police and told them I’d seen a man in the park. They said they’d take a look but I could hardly see it being a priority.

She let out a long sigh. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute. I need more wine, that’s all. And dinner. I popped into M and S and got us a moussaka and some salad. Is that OK? I know I said I’d cook, but I’m tired. Work was blah.’

‘Perfect.’

She smiled at me.

‘Promise me you won’t do it again,’ I said.

‘What, buy moussaka?’

‘Walk through the park at night. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Put the telly on. I need something mindless to cheer me up.’

We ate dinner and drank more wine and pretty soon we were pulling our clothes off, doing it there and then on the sofa, Charlie on top. Afterwards I went to the bathroom and remembered the things Charlie had left in there.

‘I saw you’d put some toiletries in my bathroom cabinet,’ I said when I came out. She was wearing my towelling dressing gown, a fresh glass of wine in her hand.

She looked confused. ‘Huh?’

‘You left a bunch of stuff in the cabinet. Shampoo, conditioner . . .’

‘I didn’t put anything in there.’

‘You must have.’

‘I did leave some stuff in your bedroom – I left it in there by mistake when I was arranging my bag the other day. I was going to ask you about it. But I didn’t put anything in the cabinet.’

‘Oh. It must have been Kristi then.’

She sat up straight. ‘Who’s Kristi?’

‘My cleaner.’

‘You’ve got a cleaner?’

A programme I liked was starting on TV and I was half-distracted by it. Charlie picked up the remote and turned the television off.

‘You’ve got a cleaner?’ she repeated.

‘Yeah. She comes once a week, does a couple of hours. I guess she must have found your things and put them in the bathroom.’

Charlie’s whole demeanour had changed from tired but happy to tense and, seemingly, annoyed. I pulled on my clothes.

‘What’s she like? Some poor, middle-aged woman? A Mrs Mop?’

I thought about Kristi with her smoky eyes and killer cheekbones. ‘No. She’s pretty young. Albanian, I think.’

Charlie looked horrified. ‘Oh God.’

‘What?’

‘It’s so exploitative. Privileged middle-class white male gets poor immigrant to clean his toilet.’

I felt like pointing out that, as far as I could tell, Kristi had never been near my toilet. Apart from tidying up, I still wasn’t sure exactly what she did. But I was dumbstruck by Charlie’s reaction.

‘I’m not exploiting her. She advertised for her services. I’m helping her out, actually. She needs the work.’

‘Really? How much do you pay her?’

‘I pay her eight pounds an hour.’ That was after the agency’s fee. ‘Though I usually round it up to ten pounds an hour because she never has change.’

‘What a hero.’

I couldn’t believe this. I felt anger rising inside me. ‘I’m not doing anything wrong, Charlie. I need a cleaner, she obviously needs work. I’m sure she’s got far worse clients than me.’

‘I don’t understand why you need a cleaner anyway. This place is tiny, you’re here all day. Can’t you do it yourself?’

I explained that I’d taken Kristi on when I’d had my operation and found doing most things difficult.

‘But you’re all right now, so you can get rid of her.’

‘I don’t want to. I’d feel bad. She needs the money.’

Charlie stood up. ‘Do you get off on it?’

‘What?’

‘Paying a young woman to degrade herself.’

I was aghast. ‘Charlie! This is insane.’

‘Or maybe she’s too ugly for you to get a kick out of it.’

We were standing close now. This was crazy, but it was also exhilarating because, even as the blood heated in my veins and Charlie jabbed a finger at me, it didn’t feel real. Were we really arguing about this? This was our first argument, and it was about a cleaner!

‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘she’s really pretty. But you’re being ridiculous. She’s my cleaner, I don’t want to get rid of her, and I am not exploiting her. I’m not degrading her and I certainly don’t get a sexual thrill out of watching a woman vacuum my bedroom!’

She opened her mouth to speak again and promptly shut it. She closed her eyes too and inhaled deeply. I was pretty sure she was counting to ten beneath her breath.

‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I’ve had too much wine and I’m still stressed after being followed. I just have a thing about people, women especially, being exploited.’

‘I’m not—’

‘I know, I know. I understand. It’s not you – it’s the injustice of the situation.’

‘I don’t think—’ I began, but she cut me off.

‘Can we talk about something else?’ she said. ‘Actually, can we go to bed? I’m tired, I’m a bit drunk and I don’t want to talk any more.’ She put her arms around me and kissed me. ‘Do you forgive me?’

‘Of course I do.’

She looked into my eyes. ‘I love you, Andrew. I know we’ve only been together a couple of weeks, but I . . .’ She trailed off, her expression shy. ‘I feel embarrassed.’

I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I feel the same way.’

‘But you won’t say it?’ she said with a little smile.

‘I’m very happy to say it. I love you, Charlie.’

And with that, the argument was forgotten, and a minute later we were making love again, in bed, slowly, the intensity of it white-hot and all-consuming, the most intense it had ever been, and as she raked her fingernails down my back, and kissed me so hard I felt my lips would be bruised, I told her again that I loved her, and she whispered it into my mouth just before she came.

Afterwards, she lay with her front pressed against my back, her arms tight around me, her legs entwined with mine. She fell asleep quickly but I lay awake for a while. My vow to find out more about her past had gone by the wayside. Tomorrow, I told myself. Despite the weird argument about Kristi, and the scare with Charlie being followed, I felt content. In fact, the protectiveness I’d felt when she was scared, and the release after the argument – which was based on principles I admired even if I wasn’t sure I agreed with them – made me feel even closer to her than before.

But I wasn’t going to sack my cleaner.